Sokari Douglas Camp was born in Nigeria in 1958. She immigrated to England in around 1970 to attend boarding school in Totnes, Devon, aged 12. This was followed by a brief period in the USA where she first studied art, then continuing her training in London at the Central School of Art and Design and, later, at the Royal College of Art. Widely exhibited, her work is comprised mainly of large-scale steel sculptures, inspired by her Nigerian heritage and contemporary issues of race, representation, and contemporary society; in 2005, she was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to the arts.
Sculptor Sokari Douglas Camp was born in 1958 in Buguma, Rivers State, Nigeria. Her father was a Kalabari chief and a fisherman, while her mother sold palm oil at local markets. At a young age her mother became unwell, and Douglas Camp went to live with her guardian, Robin Horton, with whom she moved to Ilé-Ifè at the age of 6. She moved to the UK in around 1970, when she attended a boarding school between the ages of 12 and 18 in Totnes, Devon. In 1979 she studied Fine Art at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California, returning to England in 1980 to undertake a BA (Hons) in Sculpture at the Central School of Art and Design, London, graduating in 1983. During her undergraduate studies, she was awarded the Ami Sadur Friedlander Prize (1981) and the Saatchi & Saatchi Award (1982). She also held her first solo exhibition, Alali [Festival Time], at the Africa Centre, London, in 1982. In 1983, she received a Princess of Wales Scholarship and Henry Moore Foundation bursary to undertake further studies. She continued with an MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London, graduating in 1986.
In 1987, she held her first major solo show in the USA, Echoes of the Kalabari at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, where she exhibited 13 life-sized sculptures in steel and wood, which took inspiration from Kalabari masquerades, festivals, and funeral celebrations. Further solo shows included Urban Women at London's Southbank Centre (1992), Urban Walk at the Barbican Centre (1994), and Spirits in Steel – The Art of Kalabari Masquerade at the American Museum of Natural History, Washington DC (1998-99), among others. In 2003, her proposal 'NO-O-War No-O-War-R', a piece which drew on the history of protest and demonstration, was short-listed for the Fourth Plinth on Trafalgar Square. In 2005, she collaborated with the television show Ground Force to create the Africa Garden at the British Museum in London, and in the same year was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to the arts. The following year, Battle Bus, a life-size steel replica of a Nigerian bus in memory of activist and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and his companions, who were assassinated by the military regime in the Niger Delta, was exhibited outside of the London offices of The Guardian newspaper and toured cities with strong links to the history of slavery, including Bristol and Liverpool. In 2007, she received the 4th Annual Black Business Award, UK, and became Vice-President of the Kalabari Union; in 2008, she became Governor at University of the Arts, London. In 2012, her memorial All the World is Now Richer, commemorating the abolition of slavery, was exhibited in the House of Commons. The series of life-size steel figures depict the progress of slavery from enslaved plantation workers through to post-liberation figures of the twentieth century. The work toured England, included exhibitions at Bristol Cathedral, Norfolk Cathedral, and St Paul’s Cathedral, where it was on display in 2014. In 2016, her solo show,Primavera, at the October Gallery, London, brought together major new sculptures which focussed on the reinterpretation of familiar figures from the European classic tradition as depicted by Botticelli and William Blake.
Sokari Douglas Camp works predominantly in steel sculpture, producing small and large-scale pieces which reflect themes of movement, clothing, Kalabari culture, theatre and the environment, drawing particular inspiration from her heritage and roots in the Niger Delta, and her experiences of life in the UK. Sokari Douglas Camp continues to live and work in London, based in a small street in Elephant & Castle. Her work is held in numerous UK public collections, including the British Museum and the Horniman Museum, London, and Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. Internationally, her works are held by Minneapolis Museum of Art; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian, all in the USA, and the Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, among other public collections.